Los Angeles

Los Angeles isn’t so much the City of Angels as it is the City of Dreams. I say that because this trip has been a dream come true for me – as far as the celebrity meet and greets go, anyway. Not to mention surfing – That’s good fun, too. Is it enough to make me move here? Doubtful. But I do want to come visit more often.

I’ve once again been horribly remiss about keeping this blog updated. In my defense – we’ve been quite busy with work – as well as some very entertaining extracurricular activities.

My boss Alexia was out here last weekend and we spent the weekend at the Los Angeles Times Travel and Adventure Expo. It was exhausting but successful – a full day of talking and selling and smiling and standing. Not that I’m complaining, since we stayed in the Long Beach Hyatt.

The weekend before, Ashley and I stayed with my aunt and uncle for a long weekend. It was nice to take a break from the hotels and stay in a house with our own rooms for a bit. Ashley and I get along incredibly well, but it’s always nice to have some alone time once in a while.

Our free weekend was jam-packed with fun events. We drove down to Laguna and checked out the big houses, visited the whale lookout on Palos Verdes, and watched the Super Bowl, of course. But our other events were much more celeb packed and exciting!

Jon got us tickets through Honda for the Supercross. I had a blast at the event – it’s exciting. But I’ll admit that my attention was only partly on the races. It's a sickness, this obsession with celebrity. Even when I was watching the races, part of me was always focused on our neighbors in seats behind us. We were joined in our section by Skeet Ulrich (who starred in Scream, Into the West, and currently Jericho), and Kerr Smith (who played Jack McFee on Dawson’s Creek). Later, we were joined by Kathryn Morris, the blond girl on Cold Case.

I am still kicking myself that I neglected to get a picture with Josh Duhamel, so I wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass me by. So as Skeet and the others were preparing to leave, I finally got up the nerve, and flagged Skeet down to get a picture with him. Here’s the proof…

My next big event was a trip to see The Tonight Show with Diane and Ashley. Once again, our tickets were provided by my incredible uncle Jon. We were on the VIP list for the show. For that night, the schedule included Clint Eastwood and Jennifer Hudson, with John Waite and Alyson Krausse. After the show ended, we hung around, watching as a large group was invited on stage to meet and have a group photo with Jay. Just when we were all wondering how those people were lucky enough to meet Jay, one of the stage managers motioned to us and invited us down to the stage. Thanks to Jon, we were invited to shake hands with Jay Leno and have our picture taken with him. No proof yet of that one since the studio is sending the pictures to us…

And finally, our long weekend ended with a trip to the set of General Hospital. Once again, Jon pulled through and got us passes through his fellow Honda enthusiast Ingo Rademacher, who plays Jax on the soap. We met Ingo and his lovely girlfriend at the set. He was the perfect host – introducing us to his cast members, helping us get pictures with everyone, and explaining the procedures involved with filming the show. For someone who has watched GH since college, meeting these people is something that you never actually expect to happen in real life, so it’s a bit surreal to meet the actors and talk to them and watch the filming of the show. Ingo is great in person and I am really glad that I had the chance to visit the set as his guest.